Louise followed Alice into the hallway. She tried to focus on what Alice was saying, but she kept seeing Ian Scott. She was shivering with fear.
“Did you get what I said?” Alice asked. “Edward called. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, fine. A bad dream. Thank God he called.”
There was a whiteout, Alice said, shortly after Edward got on the road. They couldn’t go anywhere for at least an hour. It had been more difficult to find a decent motel than he’d thought it would be. Elinor was safe and asleep at the Lone Pine Motel.
27
On the third day, Louise and Alice arrived at the motel in the last hour of light. The trip had been exhausting, especially the winding roads through northern Ontario. And because neither had wanted to drive at night, it took longer than either would have liked.
The Lone Pine Motel had a single, pitiful, to Louise’s way of thinking, pine tree in the middle of the parking lot. There were four small cabins and eight motel units, all in varying stages of decline, all a faded green with peeling white trim. One of the parking spaces was taken up by a pile of snow higher than the building. Behind the motel, a wall of scraggly pine trees and an outcropping of grey and maroon rock that towered over the small building. The rock was carved with rivulets of ice.
Elinor’s room, 214, was the second door to the left of the office.
Louise’s heart was racing and she realized she was scared. Scared of what state she might find her mother in. Had she suffered another stroke? Had she been harmed, injured during the time with Edward? Even though Edward said Elinor was all right, she might be deathly ill. He didn’t know her, and Elinor was skilled at denying, even lying, about physical ailments.
Louise had phoned Elinor a few times when they were on the road. Most times Elinor didn’t pick up. The one time she did she said she was exhausted and had little to say.
Alice rapped on the door, waited little more than a few seconds before turning the knob when Elinor didn’t answer.
“Typical,” Alice said when the door, unlocked, came open.
The small room was painted a dull pink. Above the unmade bed hung a faded painting of a country scene with an English cottage, thatched roof, and cows in a field. Next to the window, which looked like it hadn’t been washed since the motel was built, were a table and chair. Elinor’s coat, red stockings, and purple scarf were piled in a jumble on the back of the chair. A white bowl and mug, spoon and glass, tea bags and sugar, a packet of cigarettes, and a couple of stones were strewn across the table.
The toilet flushed; Alice and Louise grinned at each other. The toilet flushed again, then the sound of running water.
Alice tapped on the bathroom door. “Gran. It’s Alice.”
No answer. Alice cracked the door.
Elinor faced the bathtub as water rushed into it. Half-dressed, shoulders curled, knees bent, she wore a white T-shirt, baggy white pantaloons, and thick blue socks that reached her knees. On her left arm a bandage that ran from her elbow to her wrist. Her creamy hair hung to her non-existent bum. She was skin and bone. Alice blinked away tears.
In the interval between Alice placing her hand on her gran’s shoulder and Elinor turning toward her granddaughter, Louise glimpsed the thin frailness and stubborn courage that was her mother. What was she going to do with her? They needed to find Bright Eyes.
28
Elinor twittered at her daughter’s blue and green budgies, then poked a finger through the rungs of the cage. When none of the birds showed interest, she opened the door and slipped her hand in. She rested a finger at the breast of one of the turquoise birds. Her own heart, she thought, wasn’t beating much stronger than that of the bird. Eventually, the budgie curled its cool claws around Elinor’s finger and she withdrew her hand.
“You poor thing,” she said. Then she laughed, a dry, weak sound. “I’m not any different than you, am I? We’re both caged. My cage is a little bigger than yours, but it’s just about as hard to get out of. I have to wait for my granddaughter, daughter, or son-in-law before I can go anywhere, do anything. Let’s you and I go for a walk, shall we?”
She shuffled from the kitchen into the hallway and then the dining room. She extended her arm and asked the bird what he thought of this place. “This is where we eat. Quite a bit grander than the plastic dish you sup from,” she said. She waved her arm, trying to get the bird to fly, but it only gripped harder onto her finger. She laughed. “What? Have you forgotten how to move those wings of yours?” She dragged a chair away from the table and sat down.
“What’s your name? Buddy? Petey? Birdy?” She flicked her arm quickly. “Come on. You can do it. Give us a show.” The bird flapped its wings but didn’t take flight. “That’s it. Do a little warm-up. If this old woman can get herself out of the hospital and halfway across the country, you can have a little spin around the dining room. I won’t tell Louise. It will be our secret.” She flapped her arm again, then tried to nudge the bird from her finger with her other hand. “Come on, away you go. I know it’s not the jungles of Brazil, but there are a couple of plants by the window and some pretty pictures on the wall. Let your imagination go a bit.”
Some of the pictures were lovely, but not all of them. She was surprised to see that Louise had hung a few of her paintings, the ones of the valley. She didn’t care for the modern things, with bright colours, lines, and designs. She didn’t see any creatures in them. What kind of person made pictures without birds, fishes, antelope?
She flung her arm again and this time the bird took flight.
“Yes. Isn’t that lovely?”
The bird circled the room, landed on the frame of a large modern piece of art, shit, then took flight again. Elinor’s eyesight being what it was, she didn’t notice the deposit the bird had left. It flew to the sideboard, a dark walnut piece, and toddled from one end to the other.
At the window, watching the neighbourhood children in their scarves and mitts, red and blue snow suits, throwing snowballs, leaping into piles of snow, Elinor wondered if Bright Eyes had ever done those things. There was so much she didn’t know about her daughter. Did she like to play bingo, eat fried fish, watch the seasons come and go? Did she have children?
Elinor forgot about the bird.
She wandered into the living room and plunked down onto the couch. Just this one room was almost half the size of her little cottage, which she missed desperately. Now the lake would be covered in ice, a long expanse of white, quiet and still. When she was younger and better able, she’d walk along the shoreline looking for deer, muskrat, and duck tracks. She loved the springtime, the tinkle of the ice breaking up, the crackle of red-winged blackbirds clinging to bulrushes, soft puffs of fluff on willow bushes. As soon as most of the snow was gone, the hillsides were covered in purple crocus, the fuzzy blooms crouching low to the ground to escape the prairie winds.
The couch was too soft. She’d ask Alice to bring her rocker in. She liked to rock, not sink down into cushions; too hard to get up. She inched her body to the edge of the couch and pushed herself up. The tiredness was coming again. She’d take a nap soon. Louise thought that was all she did but Elinor made herself roam about the house to keep the blood flowing through her veins until Bright Eyes came. She knew she was coming; she must hang on until then.
How did she manage to work in this place? Elinor wondered, standing at the doorway of her daughter’s study. The desk was strewn with papers. There were stacks of books around the edges of the desk. Larger than Elinor’s living room, the study contained what to Elinor was an enormous desk, a brown-leather high-backed chair, and two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed with books and magazines. The window overlooked the garden. Elinor thought it was one of the nicest views in the house.
She remembered the summer John had made the pond. How hard he had worked, digging a hole in the heavy clay soil, filling it with a layer of cement, then securing stones around the perimeter, piling others up for the waterfall. He was so proud of the go
ldfish. He loved feeding them, seeing them dart to the top, snap the pellets off the surface of the water. He was delighted that the fish were growing in length, getting plump. One morning he’d noticed that one of the fish was missing. Perhaps it had died and sunk to the bottom of the pond, although the day before all four had seemed healthy. When he fed them that evening he saw only two fish. The following morning there was only one. Then he saw the scat by the pond. He stayed up late that night waiting, until he couldn’t stay awake any longer. The next morning there were no fish. More scat. Raccoon scat.
The pond was a lovely place to sit near in the summer, the sound of water trickling over the stones. The chicken wire John stretched over the water seemed to deter the raccoons.
Elinor shuffled to the desk. Piles of files. One pile easily two feet high. She’d never seen such a huge briefcase as her daughter dragged around. No wonder she had problems with her back and neck.
Fingers grasping the perimeter of the desk, Elinor moved to the chair and sat down; her feet didn’t touch the floor. The back of the chair was straighter than she liked. It had wheels; she tried to roll it closer to the desk but it was too heavy for her to move. She spotted the purple glass at the edge of the blotter and wiggled to the edge of the chair. The size and shape of an egg, the chunk of glass fit into her hand. Smooth and cool, she was reminded of the stones she had found in stream and creek beds, where years of flowing water left them equally smooth. She returned the glass egg to its spot, grabbed the gavel, and pounded it down on its square of wood. She chuckled at what a satisfying sound it made.
The day Joseph came back from the city, from that woman’s house where Louise was staying, and told Elinor their daughter was going to law school, Elinor almost fell off her chair. And she did drop her mug of tea. Then she laughed and pointed her finger at him, said she’d never thought him to be such a fool. Why would Louise want to do that? How could she manage to do that? People who did that had money. And their skins were white. Louise had neither of those.
When Joseph insisted their daughter was smarter and more resourceful than either of them knew, Elinor decided to calm herself. Even so, she wasn’t convinced anything would come of it. A small number of their people were managing to do well — a very small number. Some had started to have success with their farms, growing big crops of potatoes and onions, grains, raising healthy cattle. A few had finished school and were working as carpenters, cooks, even some teachers. But most were struggling, barely getting by, in her estimation. Sickness, hunger, too much drinking, shacks for homes, children dying, leaving their families way too early.
The day Louise left — disappeared — Elinor had been happy. She’d been making birchbark pictures, something her mother had shown her how to do. Strips of bark, young and thin, moist and malleable, were cut from birch trees. The strips were folded into quarters or eighths, then a design was marked on them. Using her eye tooth, she bit along the design without puncturing the bark. Sometimes she made flowers and leaves, dragonflies, other times just designs. It was always exciting to see what had been created when she unfolded the bark, the same figure or design mirroring itself four or six times. Little dark dots where she’d bitten transformed into a flower, a dragonfly.
At first Elinor wasn’t worried when Louise wasn’t there for supper. She thought she’d wandered into the woods with the other girls. Even when Louise stayed away the first night, Elinor thought little of it; Louise was getting older and she was well able to take care of herself. But by the third day Elinor was frantic. No one on the reserve had seen Louise. All of her friends were with their families.
Philip had been dead about three years when Louise left. Yet for Elinor, it seemed as if it was just the day before that he had been taken from them. He came to her in her dreams. Sometimes she’d see him in the clouds. The war in Europe had ended a year or two before. Cousins and friends of hers had gone to France. They wrote letters about the horrid mud, rain, and rats, guys dead all around them. The letters stopped and when the war ended, some didn’t come home. Others came back without arms or legs, or with half their face shot off.
Elinor didn’t know if she could bear the loss of another child. A week went by. Maybe the coyotes had gotten her. After another week and no word from or about her daughter, Louise’s friend Blanche finally told Elinor what Louise had been planning. It was small comfort to Elinor; her daughter might as well be dead. On her own off the reserve. What would she eat? Where would she sleep? Who would watch out for her? Certainly not white people. They only knew how to take from Indians, never to give back.
Joseph went to the city, over and over, to search for Louise. After three months he found her. So many things Elinor had forgotten, but she remembered Joseph’s look when he walked through the door the day he found her. If she had made a painting of his face, it would be like one of those modern paintings with colours thrown about, weird shapes and designs, a painting that made no sense to her. Most of the time she could read Joseph; she knew the colour of his happiness, the patina of his anger, the brush of satisfaction in his eyes and on his mouth when he’d managed to catch a couple of rabbits. That day she fussed around, asking him if he was sick, had he been drinking, did he want tea. All he said was she should sit down, get herself a drink, she might need it. As soon as he started to speak, she knew his heart was broken, and by the end of the telling, hers was also. Yes, he had found their daughter. At the moment she was safe. And she was not coming home. Not for a visit, not to get food. Not ever.
When Elinor returned to the kitchen she noticed the open door of the birdcage and closed it. “Silly birds. Door wide open and you don’t go out for a fly. What’s the matter with you?”
A flutter came in her mind and she counted the birds. She was pretty sure there should be five but she counted only four. Then she remembered. Fear clenched her chest like a hawk’s claws held tight to a gopher. Louise would chop off her hands. Her mind raced to the dining room but her body couldn’t keep up. She tripped. Sprawled on the floor, she cursed her feet for refusing to follow her wishes. The birds chirped and she told them to shut up. She stared at the ceiling, watching the shadows shift and jiggle.
As a young girl she’d lie on her blanket watching the smoke from the fire weave its way to the opening at the top of the tipi. Every once in a while a drop of fat would slip from the rabbit’s or duck’s body and sizzle in the fire.
The shadows on the ceiling darkened and Elinor remembered the bird.
Where was that damned bird?
She rolled onto her side, urged her body onto her hands and knees. It was a miracle she hadn’t broken something. She prayed this wasn’t a day that Louise came home early from work. There would be no explaining herself. Louise would be rushing her off to a doctor. Her heart was running so fast she thought it might burst through her chest. She’d stay in this spot for a moment to get her breath. She didn’t want to pass out.
This was the world view enjoyed by dogs and cats, she thought — table and chair legs, crusts of bread, a green pea under the counter, a splatter of gravy or ketchup on the floor. She lifted her head. She could see the edge of the kitchen counter, the white enamel of the oven door, the doors of the lower cupboards, the garbage can. A dog’s experience was made richer by all the scents its nose gathered. She sniffed a couple of times but didn’t bring in anything interesting. She sucked in a breath, grabbed hold of a table leg, and pulled herself up. Head spinning and light, she gripped the edge of the table and remained there for a moment.
Somehow she got from the kitchen to the dining room.
The absence of sunlight in the room told her it was mid afternoon. John often came home early. If she wasn’t napping, they’d have a cigarette together on the back porch. He’d talk about his students. The things they got up to: The one who claimed he lost his homework in a mailbox. Another whose mother called every day to say her daughter’s homework was too hard. John figured the mother was doing the homework. The student who tossed another st
udent’s lunch onto the roof of the school.
Elinor scanned the dining room. Where was the damned bird? She called and whistled but saw and heard nothing. Did it get outside? She was pretty sure she hadn’t opened any doors. She shuffled across the room. A few feet from the window she felt a lump beneath her foot. She looked down and cursed.
“Must have flown into the window,” she whispered to herself as she scooped up the little creature. Don’t let it be dead. She cupped the bird to her chest and stroked the tiny head. Maybe the beating of her own heart would spur the bird’s to action.
“Come on, then,” she said, “you’re tougher than that. Just a little bonk. I tripped a few minutes ago but got myself back up.” She held the bird away from her chest. Was there some movement in the bird’s throat or chest? Some quivering inside? She brought the bird to her mouth and breathed on it. Still nothing. She might as well die. Louise would never forgive her. Maybe the bird needed to be with the others. Maybe they’d know what to do. Yes. Creatures always looked after their own. Well, mostly. Sometimes they abandoned them. She placed the bird in the bottom of the cage, prayed to the Creator to help it heal.
29
Louise flipped through the pile of messages Anita, her assistant, had left on her desk while she was in court. A request for a donation from the Canadian Cancer Society, a notice of a meeting at the animal shelter, a reminder about the monthly dinner of the Law Society, a reminder that her dry cleaning was ready for pickup. Several calls from clients and colleagues. A message with a long-distance, out-of-province number. She didn’t recognize the name. The message said URGENT PERSONAL MATTER, PLEASE CALL. Usually her assistant screened out these kinds of calls. This person had been persistent.
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